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Is college credit for massive open online courses coming?

November 21, 2012

Some of the 19 Coursera courses on AI and robotics (credit: Coursera)

The American Council on Education (ACE) has announced a wide-ranging research and evaluation effort that will examine the academic potential of massive open online courses (MOOCs).

The ACE College Credit Recommendation Service (ACE CREDIT) will evaluate for potential college credit select courses offered by Coursera, a leading provider of massive open online courses (MOOCs).

“MOOCs are an intriguing, innovative new approach that holds much promise for engaging students across the country and around the world, as well as for helping colleges and universities broaden their reach,” said ACE President Molly Corbett Broad.

Among the questions ACE will address in research undertaken in collaboration with the University of Illinois Springfield’s Center for Online Learning, Research, and Service are to what extent do MOOCs reach low-income young adult and older adult learners, what is the level of satisfaction of students enrolled in MOOCs, and do MOOCs have the potential to help lead to degrees or certificates.

Comments (6)

On a short term basis, I can see a need for both, the traditional schooling and the development of massive online courses. Intellectual stimulation in a particular academic subject can come from student/teacher nexus or from a well design user friendly online course.With the accelerated decrease of computer and access to the internet costs, MOOCs is inevitable.This system will also have the advantage of making education at large available to all regardless to location and time.

The interested vested against this are formidable: (a) Higher education needs the psychology/sociology/french/literature/etc. who pay $100k for content that is worth $20k/year on graduation, (b) Primary/Seconday education unions need their free lunch off the public dole, (c) publishers need their text book fees, and more. But fortunately, there are forces attacking each of these. What is needed is comparative reporting that shows test scores and placement rates for graduates of online courses relative to brick&mortar institutions and then the plate will really shift.

The most important part of education is the transfer of patterning in one to one exchanges between two pairs of eyes at the reading distance. Another essential part of the process — writing — is learned slowly. The Internet and multiple choice tests will be a paltry second rate substitute for a first class education. Recently, however, this alternative has been much ballyhooed … primarily, perhaps, by the ill-educated, who might like to drag everyone else down to their level.

We already have a working prototype, Advanced Placement. We can, and should, expand AP test access to year-round using secured test facilities and make them available to anyone, not just high school students.